Your fears confirmed: “up to” broadband speeds are bogus

Broadband providers in the US have long hawked their wares in "up to" terms. You know—"up to" 10Mbps, where "up to" sits like a tiny pebble beside the huge font size of the raw number.

In reality, no one gets these speeds. That's not news to the techno-literate, of course, but a new Federal Communications Commission report (PDF) shines a probing flashlight on the issue and makes a sharp conclusion: broadband users get, on average, a mere 50 percent of that "up to" speed they had hoped to achieve.

After crunching the data, FCC wonks have concluded that ISPs advertised an average (mean) "up to" download speed of 6.7Mbps in 2009. That's not what broadband users got, though.

"However, FCC analysis shows that the median actual speed consumers experienced in the first half of 2009 was roughly 3 Mbps, while the average (mean) actual speed was approximately 4 Mbps," says the report. "Therefore actual download speeds experienced by US consumers appear to lag advertised speeds by roughly 50 percent."

The agency used metrics data from Akamai and comScore to make this determination, though a more accurate direct measurement is currently taking place under FCC auspices. The more accurate measurement will put small boxes in people's homes for weeks at a time, recording actual line speeds in thousands of US homes at all times of the day and night. But, until that data set is complete, Internet traffic data from Akamai and comScore will have to suffice.

When you look at actual speeds, most Americans have fairly slow service

Data source: FCC

The gap between advertisement and reality isn't a function of technology—it applied to all kinds of broadband connections, from cable to DSL to fiber. The less-than-ideal speeds aren't necessarily the "fault" of the ISP, either; crufty computers, poky routers, misconfigured WiFi, transient line noise, and Internet congestion all play a role.

Whatever the cause, though, the FCC has concluded that advertising the "up to" speed is so inaccurate (and so confusing to consumers) that something better should be tried, sort of a "nutrition label" for Internet access. The National Broadband Plan suggested something along these lines and the new FCC report supports the idea, recommending that a standard truth-in-labeling form should be drafted by the FCC, "the National Institute of Standards and Technology, consumer groups, industry and other technical experts."

For now, broadband buyers should just expect their connections to offer about half the promised maximum speed. If that gets you down, just remember: you aren't in this alone. UK broadband users also see speeds only half as fast as advertised.

Edit: i should note that speed is not the problem I have with Comcast. The problem is reliability. The speeds I get are actually pretty good when it's working.

Part of the problem is lack of competition. In most places people can pick between one crappy cable provider and one crappy DSL provider.

In my case, I don't even have that much choice. The only thing available is Comcast cable. Qwest, the local DSL provider, doesn't offer service on my street... even though I live in the middle of an urban area (Salt Lake City) and I'm less than a mile from a major university (U of Utah).

So basically when Comcast provides crappy service, I can't take my money elsewhere. I just have to live with it. Ugh.

Seems like I should get a rebate. This is why $50/month for most broadband is bogus. This is why even the wireless data plans are bogus. Nobody is getting what they are suppose to be getting but these guys are making a huge margin and providing less.

What I want is a mandatory LCD on the cable modem that gives me my max, min and avg speed similar to what you can get with a simple electic or even freak'n water meter (at least in my area)..

Having tested it heavily, I know my FIOS connection works at almost exactly its advertised speeds, all the time. The only reliable way to test such things, really, it with BitTorrent or other distributed protocols that don't end up having a bottleneck at a particular server or router (other than the ISP's).

I guess FIOS is one the (few?) exceptions. I pay for a 25/15 mbit line, and get about 30 mbps down and 25 mbps up. Just about everyone I know with FIOS tells me the same thing, they get consistent download speeds -- when the other end can provide it that is.

About two weeks ago I noticed my DSL speed had greatly degregated for some reason. I pay for a 1.5mbps and was getting a 0.27mbps. It used to be consistently 1.5 so I was obviously annoyed.

I went to Home Depot, bought a bunch of Cat5 cable for about $15, crawled around under my house replacing the old Cat3 wire, and now my speed is back up to 1.5mpbs (ok it's 1472kbps). My upload stayed the same advertised price though.

A big part of people's speed is effected simply by the aging wiring. But good luck getting the phone companies to replace it themselves. And the cable companies? Probably a waste of breath.

Well people can easily monitor the time it takes to download a large file. Of course the server might be the limitiation. My DSL line only promises 700kb. But I do actually generally do get large downloads at that rate.

I guess i'm lucky in the northeast. I've had Comcast in 3 cities/towns in the past 5 years. In each case i've been able to get speeds at or even above my rated tier. The only time I had slow speeds was during one 3-day period when there were major line issues in our area and everyone was reporting problems (there were trucks working in the area ASAP because of the volume of complaints).

Along with misinforming their customers on the actual speed they'll be paying for, they often use in their marketing terms like "up to 5 Megs", which most consumers would take to mean 5 MB per second, eight times the (falsely) advertised speed.

I want to know exactly what they mean by "heavy" and "congested" in regard to traffic shaping.

I would prefer something like "If the user saturates more than X% of their maximum bandwidth averaged over a period of N minutes between the peak hours of A p.m. and B p.m., their bandwidth will be throttled to Y% of maximum until average demand over the previous N minutes falls back below X% of maximum, or B p.m. is reached".

I guess FIOS is one the (few?) exceptions. I pay for a 25/15 mbit line, and get about 30 mbps down and 25 mbps up. Just about everyone I know with FIOS tells me the same thing, they get consistent download speeds -- when the other end can provide it that is.

fios in northern nj, i'm also paying for 25/15 Mb/s and typically in speedtests will get 25/24 Mb/s. steam and bittorrent always give me 3.0+ MB/s downloads. i love it and will be very sad when i move if i can't get fios.

Meh, I only get about 50% of theoretical line speed on my LAN over NFS. I think a lot of people have long thought in terms of the 50% rule of thumb when deciding if an Internet connection is functioning properly. That said, I do like the standardised labelling idea. I especially like the fact that upload is listed right next to download in the same size type. IMHO, Any nation that wants to create an infrastructure for a pervasively connected society that can be economically competetive in the next century needs to be obcessed with upload speeds, even moreso than download speeds. The converse is creating a society of information consumers who are dependant on outside content, and that is basically just asking the Chinas of the world to control the USA in the information age in exactly the same way that they now control our Manufacturing and Industrial base.

I guess FIOS is one the (few?) exceptions. I pay for a 25/15 mbit line, and get about 30 mbps down and 25 mbps up. Just about everyone I know with FIOS tells me the same thing, they get consistent download speeds -- when the other end can provide it that is.

What you failed to mention is that all plans (that I have seen) do have a minimum service level. Recently I had AT&T come out because I was only getting about 1.5mbps for 6mbps service. Their minimum SLA is 3.0mbps. They came out and checked out the line and determined their side was OK, but that I had not used a twisted pair in the outer link of my phone connection. I took their advice and rewired; now I can top out at 5.3mpbs for hours. So what if you don't get the max - there are all sorts of factors involved, but they have to put some figure out there and rank their tiers. Years ago I had Earthlink, who was unable to come close to the 3mbps they were charging me for. The situation was out of their control since they didn't own the equipment. So they lowered my tier and charged me less. Sometimes people expect too much...

As the FiOS commentors have already stated, this isn't true. Most people might not get their speeds, but some do. At my old apartment I was paying for 8meg Mediacom cable. The actual speeds I got were in the 10-12 meg range. In fact, I was complaining about "crappy Mediacom" one day when I my actual speed clocked in at a mere 8mbps...until my girlfriend pointed out that's what I'm actually paying for.

I have Comcast and I get really close to my advertised 16 Mbit down and get way above that in the "power boost" section from providers who can handle that. Awesome service for my perpetual $30 a month connection (don't ask how much trouble it was to lock in that rate).

Edit: WolfKeeper beat me to it. For all the hate Comcast does provide some decent service for certain areas.

They then found that actual speed is lower. Well, yeah. If you only bought a 3mbps package, then your speed would be lower.

Isn't this equivalent to saying "advertisers show us cars like Mercedes and Porsche, but most users drive Toyota's?"

I'm not saying that there isn't a disparity between advertising and reality. Just that it's not clear from the article that this study actually measures that. Crap, now I have to read the study.

Additionally, the biggest part of this is going to be DSL lines which are constrained by distance. If you're close to the Central Office, it's going to be fast. Otherwise speed drops over time.

The phrasing from the study is bad, the article tries to imply that the number is "the average advertised speed per subscription" rather than just "the average advertised speed." If it had been the latter, 6.7 would be extremely low as FiOS and higher tier cable would pull up the average.

What I would find interesting (and maybe there's a source that has this) would be a metric of which services failed to meet their advertised speeds. Do DSL users actually meet their advertised speeds while cable users fall short? Are the biggest discrepancies limited to certain carriers or regions? I don't know of anyone who uses Qwest DSL that gets less than 90% of their advertised speed, is that because Qwest is "good" in the area I'm familiar with? Hopefully the more detailed information from the FCC box tests will answer these sorts of questions.

I want to know exactly what they mean by "heavy" and "congested" in regard to traffic shaping.

I would prefer something like "If the user saturates more than X% of their maximum bandwidth averaged over a period of N minutes between the peak hours of A p.m. and B p.m., their bandwidth will be throttled to Y% of maximum until average demand over the previous N minutes falls back below X% of maximum, or B p.m. is reached".

I'd agree that this information needs to be disclosed, but it's probably a bit more detailed that is necessary on that table. Provided the link given contains all of this information, I'd say that's enough.

To my knowledge, any broadband that uses copper telephone wires will always be compromised by the quality of the line (which could be decades old) and the distance from the local exchange

The answer of course is fibre-optic. Here in England my "up to 10Mb" fibre-optic broadband actually gives me... 9.9Mb! And it even gives me the same speed over wi-fi to my iPhone. Can't complain at that.

Other broadband providers (BT etc) offer "up to 20Mb", but realistically you never get half of that. I'd rather stick to achieving my 10Mb thankyou very much.

This of course dos not solve the problem of advertised speeds being much higher than the actual speeds most customers receive. The answer: legislate that the advertised speed must be realistic: the average speed that a minimum of 75% of customers achieve at peak times.

The answer: legislate that the advertised speed must be realistic: the average speed that a minimum of 75% of customers achieve at peak times.

Great, you completely lose the ability to differentiate between connections as every ISP, legally, quotes the BT minimum speeds as the only ones which they can rely on being able to use. Not a well thought-through idea.

I use Rogers Extreme Plus and my tested speeds have always been in the 24.9 Mb down and 1Mb up range which is virtually spot on with the advertised speed. That`s small compensation when considering their 125 GB monthly bandwidth cap though. I had Bell DSL before that, which just may be the absolute worst IP in the industrialized world.